NAIROBI (AFP) - A baby hippopotamus that survived the tsunami waves on the Kenyan coast has formed a strong bond with a giant male century-old tortoise in an animal facility in the port city of Mombassa, officials said.

The hippopotamus, nicknamed Owen and weighing about 300 kilograms (650 pounds), was swept down Sabaki River into the Indian Ocean, then forced back to shore when tsunami waves struck the Kenyan coast on December 26, before wildlife rangers rescued him.

"It is incredible. A-less-than-a-year-old hippo has adopted a male tortoise, about a century old, and the tortoise seems to be very happy with being a 'mother'," ecologist Paula Kahumbu, who is in charge of Lafarge Park, told AFP. "They swim, eat and sleep together. The hippo follows the tortoise exactly the way it follows its mother. If somebody approaches the tortoise, the hippo becomes aggressive, as if protecting its biological mother," Kahumbu added.

"The hippo was left at a very tender age. By nature, hippos are social animals that like to stay with their mothers for four years," he explained.

BUT my bet would be that if the Christian wingnuts hear about it, they'll be claiming the relationship between these two male animals is a "sin against God," and that this is a ploy to promote homosexualism. Pat Robertson will scream that another tsunami will surely descend upon the people of this area, too.

Catherine

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"Behind every great fortune lies a great crime."Honore de Balzac

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